Demo 09 Promises Productivity Apps, Gadgets, and More

This morning marks the start of Demo 09, an annual conference devoted to startups and new products. Reflecting the changes in the economy, there are fewer new products here than in any year in recent memory, but I'm still expecting to see a variety of new things, ranging from gadgets to consumer web services to enterprise software. But what strikes me is the number of products designed for personal productivity, an area that has been overshadowed in recent years

This morning marks the start of Demo 09, an annual conference devoted to startups and new products. Reflecting the changes in the economy, there are fewer new products here than in any year in recent memory, but I'm still expecting to see a variety of new things, ranging from gadgets to consumer web services to enterprise software. But what strikes me is the number of products designed for personal productivity, an area that has been overshadowed in recent years.

I'll be writing more about the individual projects as they present on stage, but here are a few of the products I know about ahead of time and am looking forward to seeing:

Symantec's Project Guru (pictured) is designed to help tech-savvy users -- you know, people like us - as we support the computers of our friends and family. This ties to fill a gap between services like Geeksquad and business-level support offerings, by providing an online tool that includes remote diagnostics, network monitoring, and online remote access. This will be a closed pilot initially, and the company hasn't announced pricing, but it's a very interesting concept. I can see where I could personally use it.

A few years ago, email add-ons were common at shows like this, but I haven't seen much in years, as the focus moved to online systems, like Linked In. Gwabbit is an inexpensive add-on for Microsoft Outlook that finds and captures contacts from anywhere within an email message, and then turns them into contact records in the address book. This isn't an earth-shattering idea, but it could be very convenient. Now if only they would do an add-on for Lotus Notes....

There are a number of other email based tools slated to be introduced including the Asurion Mobile Address book; and cc:Betty, which is touted as a "personal email assistant."

Xandros Presto is a software product designed to give any Windows machine an "instant on" feature, which access to email, web browsing, chat, media, etc. What makes this different from other products with similar claims is that it will work on any Windows machine, not just particularly OEM builds, and will be available as on $19.95 consumer download on April 13. It's from the Xandros Linux folks. Honestly, it solves a problem I don't really have - I tend to have my laptop "sleep" rather than booting it each time, and I typically need to load full applications - but I certainly know people who want faster booting machines.

Gazaro is another online shopping service, this one designed to deliver you information only on the products, brands, and stores you care about. The pitch is that it crawls the various merchant websites, then shows you "personalized sales flyers." I'm skeptical, but looking forward to seeing it more.

Other software I'm looking forward to seeing includes AppZero, which claims to turn server-based applications into cloud-based applications; and a number of tools designed to improve how you find information on the Internet, including ensembli ; Primal Fusion; and Xmarks, which builds upon the Foxmarks bookmark sync utility.

Finally, there are two hardware companies that could be particularly interesting. The "Touch Book" is touted as a portable device that works as both a netbook and a touch-screen tablet; while Qualcomm's Mirasol Displays are said to use significant less energy than competing display screens.

Michael J. Miller's Forward Thinking Blog: forwardthinking.pcmag.com
Michael J. Miller is chief information officer at Ziff Brothers Investments, a private investment firm. From 1991 to 2005, Miller was editor-in-chief of PC Magazine, responsible for the editorial direction, quality and presentation of the world's largest computer publication.
Until late 2006, Miller was the Chief Content Officer for Ziff Davis Media, responsible for overseeing the editorial positions of Ziff Davis's magazines, websites, and events. As Editorial Director for Ziff Davis Publishing since 1997, Miller took an active role in...
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